Latest news with #Polydor
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Penn State adds Friday night commitment from 3-star cornerback
Penn State adds Friday night commitment from 3-star cornerback Penn State kicked off the weekend with another class of 2026 commitment. On Friday evening, the Nittany Lions landed a pledge from 3-star cornerback Amauri Polydor, who becomes the 19th member of the class. Polydor is listed at 6-foot-1 and 170 pounds and recorded 40 tackles and seven pass breakups last season as a junior. Polydor attends Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore, where he ranks as the No. 22 recruit in the state of Maryland per the 247Sports composite. He's also listed as the No. 88 cornerback and No. 1,049 overall recruit in the cycle. He received interest from several power conference programs, scheduling visits to Penn State and Maryland. Polydor is in Happy Valley this weekend, and it's unclear whether he still intends to visit the Terrapins next weekend. With his commitment, Penn State's 2026 class remained at the No. 5 spot nationally and No. 3 in the Big Ten behind No. 1 USC and No. 4 Ohio State.
Scotsman
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Stereophonics Self Esteem Billy Idol
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Stereophonics: Make 'em Laugh, Make 'em Cry, Make 'em Wait (EMI) ★★★★ Self Esteem: A Complicated Woman (Polydor) ★★★ Billy Idol: Dream Into It (Dark Horse Records) ★★★ Stereophonics PIC: James D Kelly Cloth: Pink Silence (Rock Action) ★★★ The tile of Stereophonics' latest album, Make 'em Laugh, Make 'em Cry, Make 'em Wait, suggests some whizz-bang showbiz jazz hands action from a band who don't obviously adhere to old school entertainment traditions, with frontman Kelly Jones even advising 'buckle up, it's time to go to those places you don't wanna go' on the tremulous coda of first track Make It On Your Own. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In reality, there are no white knuckle thrills and spills to be found across the trim eight tracks. After flexing their Springsteen muscles on the soaring opening moments of the album, they settle into a softer slipstream with manicured strings and wistful wishes, then switch to the mid-paced amble of There's Always Gonna Be Something, a shoulder shrug of a song on the slings and arrows of day-to-day life. Far from amping up the drama, Jones and co take a sober view. Seems Like You Don't Know Me is a pleasant rumination on unpleasant sentiments, soundtracking the bitter fallout of failed relationships with mild acoustic strumming, gently pattering drum machine and just a hint of guitar heroics at the end. Billy Idol PIC: David Raccuglia Much of the album is either mellow (rhythm'n'blues ballad Colours of October) or middle-of-the-road (standard roots rocker Mary Is a Singer) but they do perk up on dirty blues rocker Eyes Too Big For My Belly which rips a page out of Jack White's book, with Jones whooping it up over fuzz guitar and surging strings. Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem follows up her hugely acclaimed Prioritise Pleasure album with a mixed bag of styles and stances, wrangling with her changed circumstances and mental health with ample wit and a troupe of sisters in tow. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Nadine Shah, Moonchild Sanelly and Sue Tompkins of Glasgow's Life Without Buildings all guest on A Complicated Woman alongside the House Gospel Choir, who function as her Greek chorus on the ambivalent opening number I Do & I Don't Care. 'If I'm so empowered why am I such a coward?' goes the chant. Later they are called upon to get expletive on The Curse, a big, slick orchestral anthem on alcohol dependency. The pop dominatrix is back on prowling electro numbers Mother, featuring the withering advice 'I recommend listening', and 69's inventory of sexual positions before the massed voices return on epic a cappella What Now, which applies a touch of musical theatre to its rousing sentiments. Cloth PIC: Sandra Ebert Billy Idol is among this year's nominated inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Whether or not he receives official recognition, one can't fault his commitment to the cause. His first album of new music in a decade is broadly themed around his somewhat arthritic insistence that he's still good to go with Still Dancing, his salute to survival, the closest thing to his classic sleek but revved-up rock'n'roll sound. His fellow Sunset Strip rocker Joan Jett makes a tame cameo on Wildside, while Alison Mosshart of The Kills turns on the torch on the melodramatic John Wayne. Idol's trusty wingman Steve Stevens doesn't see too much action but does what he can on Too Much Fun, a bubblegum punk tribute to his tearaway days. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Glasgow-based twins Rachael and Paul Swinton have named Pink Silence, their third album as Cloth, after their term for the ethereal gloaming around dusk and dawn. Mellow minimalism is mainly the order of the day with instrumental incursions from their label boss Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai, Portishead's Adrian Utley and string arranging supremo Owen Pallett. Standout tracks include the markedly peppier Polaroid, the cool Eighties pop vibes I Don't Think So and the bare beauty of The Cottage. CLASSICAL Ancient Modernity: Louise McMonagle (Delphian) ★★★★★ The notion that the 'past and the present are contained within one another' lies at the core of Scots cellist Louise McMonagle's debut solo album Ancient Modernity. Best know for her work with frontline contemporary group Riot Ensemble, McMonagle echoes that interest from a sole perspective, performing works almost exclusively by female composers that explore the extreme possibilities of her instrument while harnessing mindful allusions to the past. From Errollyn Wallen's pithy opener Postcard for Magdalena to the extended experimentalism of Liza Lim's Cello Playing – as Meteorology (played with a bow in each hand) the journey is both fascinating and diverse. Ailie Robertson's Skydance owes its magic to the delicacy of harmonics, while the captivating mystique of Josephine Stephenson's Anamnesis, the spectralcharm of Lisa Robertson's the light through forest leaves and the wistful contemplation of John Maxwell Geddes' Callanish IV all offer singular delights. Evocations of folk music offer nostalgic touches. Ken Walton JAZZ Joe Lovano & Marcin Wasilewski Trio (Homage) ★★★★
USA Today
28-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
MSU football makes top schools list for 2026 CB prospect from Maryland
MSU football makes top schools list for 2026 CB prospect from Maryland Three-star cornerback Amauri Polydor of Baltimore includes Spartans in top schools list Michigan State football has made the top six list for one of their top cornerback prospects in the 2026 class. Amauri Polydor of Baltimore released his top six schools list on Thursday, which included the Spartans. Michigan State was joined by Penn State, South Carolina, Indiana, Maryland and Virginia Tech on Polydor's top six schools list. Polydor is a three-star cornerback prospect in the 2026 class. He currently holds a rating of 87 on 247Sports. Polydor ranks as the No. 60 cornerback in 247Sports' composite rankings for the 2026 class. He's also ranked as the No. 11 player from Maryland and No. 629 overall prospect in the class. Michigan State is one of more than 10 schools to offer Polydor a scholarship, according to 247Sports. He also holds offers from Penn State, Indiana, Maryland, South Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, East Carolina and Buffalo. Polydor has not yet scheduled an official visit to Michigan State for this summer, according to 247Sports. But I'm sure that'll change soon as the Spartans will want to get him on campus to help land his commitment. Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
New York Times
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Roy Ayers, Vibraphonist Who Injected Soul Into Jazz, Dies at 84
Roy Ayers, a vibraphonist who in the 1970s helped pioneer a new, funkier strain of jazz, becoming a touchstone for many artists who followed and one of the most sampled musicians by hip-hop artists, died on Tuesday in New York City. He was 84. His death was announced on his Facebook page. The announcement said he died after a long illness but did not specify a cause or say where in New York he died. In addition to being one of the acknowledged masters of the jazz vibraphone, Mr. Ayers was a leader in the movement that added electric instruments, rock and R&B rhythms, and a more soulful feel to jazz. He was also one of the more commercially successful jazz musicians of his generation. He released nearly four dozen albums, most notably 22 during his 12 years with Polydor Records. Twelve of his Polydor albums spent a collective 149 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart. His composition 'Everybody Loves the Sunshine,' from a 1976 album of the same name, has been sampled nearly 200 times by artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg. The electric piano hook from 'Love,' on his first Polydor album, 'Ubiquity' — which introduced his group of the same name — was used in Deee-Lite's 1990 dance hit 'Groove Is in the Heart.' 'Roy Ayers is largely responsible for what we deem as 'neo-soul,'' the producer Adrian Younge, who collaborated with Mr. Ayers and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest in 2020 on the second album in the 'Jazz Is Dead' series, which showcases frequently sampled jazz musicians, told Clash magazine. 'His sound mixed with cosmic soul-jazz is really what created artists like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. It was just that groove. 'That's not to say people around then weren't making music with a groove," he added, 'but he is definitely a pioneer.' Roy Edward Ayers Jr. was born on Sep. 12, 1940, in Los Angeles, one of four children, and the only son, of Roy and Ruby Ayers. His father was a scrap dealer and an amateur trombonist; his mother, a schoolteacher and piano tutor, gave Roy lessons from an early age. Speaking to the English newspaper The Nottingham Post in 2013, Mr. Ayers recalled that his first exposure to the vibraphone came via a giant of the instrument, when his parents took young Roy to see him perform: 'I got my first set of vibraphone mallets from Lionel Hampton when I was 5 years old, so I always wanted to be like Lionel Hampton. At one time, when I was very young, I was thinking I was going to be Lionel Hampton. My mother and father always played his music, so I was reared on Lionel Hampton.' Mr. Ayers studied music and music history with the celebrated instructor Samuel R. Browne, whose other students included Dexter Gordon and Charles Mingus, while attending Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. He made his first records in the months after his 21st birthday, under the leadership of the saxophonists Curtis Amy and Vi Redd. He made his debut as a leader before he turned 23 with the aptly titled United Artists album 'West Coast Vibes.' Mr. Ayers received his first national exposure in 1966, when he joined the band of the flutist Herbie Mann, one of the more successful musicians in jazz at the time. He would go on to make 11 albums as a member of Mr. Mann's group for Atlantic Records and Mr. Mann's own label, Embryo. Mr. Mann helped him get a contract with Atlantic and produced his four albums for the label and Columbia Japan between 1967 and 1969. Those were instrumental albums very much in keeping with the post-bop style of the era, but the Laura Nyro-written title track of his 1968 album, 'Stoned Soul Picnic,' with its use of electric bass and a horn section emulating the sound of a church choir and electric bass, foretold Mr. Ayers's next period. In 1970, he formed the Roy Ayers Ubiquity, the band with which he would become a soul-jazz star. The name was suggested by his manager, Myrna Williams — and, he explained in a 2016 oral interview for website The HistoryMakers, the choice 'was wonderful, because I can tell everybody I can be everywhere at the same time.' After his contract with Atlantic ended, Mr. Ayers began a long and fruitful partnership with Polydor. He and his band released 11 albums from 1970 to 1977, with such evocative titles as 'Change Up the Groove' and 'Vibrations.' In addition to using electric instruments and producing grooves more suited to a dance floor than a jazz club, the Roy Ayers Ubiquity included vocals by Mr. Ayers. Some members of the group were featured on Mr. Ayers's soundtrack for the 1973 blaxploitation film 'Coffy,' starring Pam Grier. While the group was popular and would ultimately prove highly influential, it received a mixed reaction from critics. Reviewing a performance at the Village Vanguard in New York in December 1970, John S. Wilson of The New York Times wrote, 'Even though Mr. Ayers gets a hard, heavy tone from his vibraphone, his playing is often buried under the eruptive power of his accompaniment or is absorbed by the very similar sound of the electric piano.' Mr. Wilson went on to say that the fuzztone attachment Mr. Ayers had added to his vibes 'produces a rasping noise, which, in its amplified state, gives one an all too vivid idea of what it might be like to be locked in a closet with a troupe of demented bagpipers.' Much as Mr. Ayers's career had been nurtured by Mr. Mann, he would nurture his younger charges in Ubiquity; he also produced an album by the group, without him, in 1978. The keyboardist Philip Woo, who was part of the band in its later stages and continued to work with Mr. Ayers after Ubiquity's dissolution in the early 1980s, wrote in an email: 'Roy Ayers discovered me in Seattle in 1976 when I was 19. It is very unusual for an artist to pick up musicians while on tour, so I was very fortunate for this to happen. I was in local bands until then. I credit him for launching my career.' Three of Mr. Ayers's most significant albums were collaborations: with the trombonist Wayne Henderson, a founder of The Jazz Crusaders, in 1978 and 1980, and with the Afrobeat trailblazer Fela Kuti in 1980. That album, 'Music of Many Colors,' was recorded in Mr. Kuti's native Nigeria. Mr. Ayers was the inspiration for the 2022 memoir 'My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family,' by the musician and record producer Nabil Ayers, who wrote of growing up as Mr. Ayers's son even though Mr. Ayers played no role in raising him. Information on other survivors was not immediately available. In the last decades of his career, Mr. Ayers recorded for several different labels while staying loyal to the genre he had helped create. He also made guest appearances on albums by Rick James, Whitney Houston, George Benson, the rapper Guru and others. Discussing his legacy as an artist and entertainer with The HistoryMakers, Mr. Ayers said: 'There's an old saying, when you do what you do, you do it to others too. My legacy is that I can make everybody happy. Everybody, even the negative ones.'
